


And we dance to the sound of your demons

by rainmaster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Harry cheats on Ginny, M/M, Post-Divorce, do they make up? kinda? it's a bit ambiguous, they meet one year after and Ginny has a lot to say, this isn't a happy text y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainmaster/pseuds/rainmaster
Summary: They were married for seven years. Then Harry cheated on her with Draco. Now a year has passed and Ginny agrees to meet with him for one last time.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Kudos: 25





	And we dance to the sound of your demons

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time on a different platform, I was challenged to write a fic inspired by the song [Up in Flames](https://youtu.be/W4jHoEPqSQc) by the band Years & Years. Do give it a listen, it's a nice song! And also where I got the name for the fic. Anyway, this is what happened, it made me write Drarry for the first time ever. Although this is more about Ginny. 
> 
> Be mindful of the tags, although there is nothing graphic involved, this fic does deal with cheating and the feelings that come with it.

Ginny Weasley is sitting in the corner table of the Leaky Cauldron. In front of her she has an untouched Butterbeer and an empty shot glass of Fire whiskey. On a chair next to her is sitting Harry Potter, a half drunk Butterbeer in his hand. Neither of them has said anything for the past ten minutes.

“You look goo-“

“Oh please, Harry.”

Silence.

“Sorry. I just,” Harry begins but falls silent for a beat, “I just meant that it’s been a year since we’ve last seen each other.”

“I suppose so,” Ginny answers and hates the fact that she doesn’t sound as cold as she should.

*

_Green flames flash on the hearth and finally Ginny is standing in her own living room. Her thoughts have already travelled to the bathroom and the bubble bath she’s about to take. All she wants to do is to soak amidst the bubbles for as long as it takes to ease the ache of a long workday._

_Ginny is halfway to the staircase when she hears a glass shatter in the kitchen._

_“Harry?” Ginny calls towards the kitchen and draws her wand just to be sure. Harry’s not supposed to be home yet._

_“Ginny? Hi. You’re home early,” Harry greets her at the kitchen door._

_“You’re the one who’s early,” Ginny smiles and gives her husband a quick kiss. “Did you break something?” she asks and goes past Harry to the kitchen. And even if Ginny did assume that there would be shards of glass on the floor, she for sure didn’t expect to see Draco Malfoy crouching on the floor and picking them up._

_“Hi, Ginny,” Draco Malfoy greets her._

_Afterwards, Ginny has though a lot of that moment and how she should have realised it all then and even earlier. But confusion, the shier absurdity of it all, had prevented her from seeing the small signs of how she’d walked right into a secret when she entered the kitchen. She hadn’t seen the faint blush on Draco’s cheeks or how his normally sleeked hair was sticking up from the back. She hadn’t felt how Harry’s lips had already been spit slick and kiss swollen from another’s kisses. The secret had been right there, within reach, and still Ginny hadn’t been able to touch it._

*

“Why did you want to meet, Harry? Hasn’t everything already been said?” Ginny asks. Harry sets the Butterbeer on the table before answering.

“I guess I just wanted to apologise once more.”

“I don’t need another apology.”

“No, you don’t, but I’m still sor-“

“Harry, don’t,” Ginny interrupts the man and for the first time since Harry sat on the chair, something else than pain and agony flashes behind his eyes.

“Do you have to be so cold? You say you’ve forgiven me, but still treat me like some Death Eater,” Harry hisses.

“Like a Death Eater? In that case you’d be in Azkaban instead of the Leaky Cauldron. Come on, Harry,” Ginny hisses back.

“Ginny.”

“Harry.”

They stare at each other the way only a divorced couple can. Neither of them backs down in front of the other’s fiery gaze, not even though they both can feel the pieces of fourteen shared years lying beneath their feet. That shared past had burned down from love, leaving only cinder and ashes to found the future on.

*

_The wedding ring feels heavy on Harry’s finger when he sits down next to Draco in the darkest corner of a smoky muggle bar. A work meeting, he whispers quietly to himself, this is just a work meeting._

_“Hey,” Draco murmurs, almost smiles._

_“Hey,” Harry smiles back._

_“So, the Ministry sent you to list all of the dark artifices my family owns?” Draco asks and his gaze never leaves Harry’s, not even for a second._

_“Yes, exactly,” Harry answers (a work meeting, a work meeting), digs up the list Ministry gave him from his satchel, and on the way traces his fingers down Draco’s thigh by accident. Draco’s eyes tell that he knows it was absolutely not an accident._

_They go through the list together, sitting ever closer to each other as the hours go by._

_“The cursed lunascope?”_

_“Missing.”_

_A hand on Harry’s knee._

_“The potion collection of darkness?”_

_“Locked in a trunk in the basement.”_

_A thumb caressing Harry’s inner thigh._

_“Slytherin’s hand of honour?”_

_Draco’s lips against Harry’s._

*

“Draco never wanted to come between you and me,” Harry finally says after they have sat in silence for a lifetime.

“But he still did,” Ginny huffs.

“Don’t blame him. I was the one, who started it. I was the one, who brought him into the situation,” Harry answers and his voice holds a tone that tells Ginny not to go further. A tone that makes it clear it is Draco who Harry now protects with the same passion that once burned for Ginny.

“For once, you’re right. It was indeed you who told me all the lies. Co-workers. You made it seem all innocent and I was the one who swallowed it all.”

Ginny can see how Harry is about to say something, maybe apologise once again, but she raises her hand to stop him.

“Do you know what the hardest part is, Harry? What has hurt the most?” Ginny asks. Harry shakes his head, whole body tense.

“That despite everything, I’m not able to hate you. Not truly.”

*

_“Why?”_

_The question falls from Ginny’s lips before she can stop it._

_Harry is sitting on the armrest of the couch, his head in his hands. Someone else might have though he’s crying, but Ginny knows there will be no tears when he finally lifts his head._

_“My whole life has been preplanned, Ginny, and I accepted that. I didn’t fight it, not even when I wanted something else. After the war I needed something safe, familiar. We all did. And you were there, you were close, warm, familiar, safe. Part of the plan. So I didn’t question the nagging feeling that told me this isn’t what I want. That this isn’t the thing I fantasise about during the night. The years had made me quite skilled in silencing that voice,” Harry laughs, but there’s no joy in it._

_“I was a broken boy who never made himself whole. I hoped that a life with you would close the cracks, that I could forget I ever was the boy who lived. But that’s not the way this works, dear Ginny, not at all. You are part of the plan, with you I will always be the scarred Harry Potter who saved the wizarding world.”_

_“But with him you’re not,” Ginny whispers silently. Harry looks at his wife, green eyes shadowed by years of pain._

_“With him I’m not.”_

*

Ginny looks at Harry, actually looks, and sees how tired the man really is. Grey hairs have appeared amidst his raven black hair and the green eyes have lost their twinkle. Ginny reaches across the table and takes Harry’s hand. She squeezes and Harry squeezes back.

“I loved you and you loved me. We shared fourteen years of our lives, half of that with rings on our fingers. But that past is not our future. The remaining years you or I have left are not tied together. You made sure of that when you untied all the knots,” Ginny says and feels only pity for the man. If Ginny has spent the past year dealing with the past and her feelings, it is clear that Harry hasn’t done the same.

“I am happy, Harry, despite of everything,” Ginny says and stands up. She pulls on her jacket, ties the scarf around her neck and steps towards the front door before she stops. 

For one last time she turns around to see what she left behind — the table, the man, the life.

“Maybe one day you are as well.”

Ginny Weasley exits the Leaky Cauldron to a chilly London and doesn’t look back ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, drop a kudo or a comment if you feel like it :)


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